Dr Shock searches for some enlightenment in the strange world of string theory in the hope that he may stumble across some great food and interesting experiences on this preposterous quest (England - Beijing - Santiago de Compostela - Munich - Melbourne - Cape Town)

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

So, I finish in the department officially on Thursday. I have another two talks to give before then, including one at the Institute for High energy physics. A couple of the members of the department were at my first talk in the KITPC and asked me to give the talk again in their institute, though I think I'll make it a blackboard talk this time.

After Thursday I will be spending some more time on my research with people back in Santiago which needs to be finished off. I'm expecting to spend much of my time in the cafes which I used to frequent here which I'm looking forward to a lot.

Things are truly hotting up for the Olympics now, with around 100,000 military personel heading into the city, the anti-aircract missile launchers set up, the rules for crowd behaviour in place (no more than four people together wearing the same clothes, unless it is presumably military, the official cheer, etc.), the cars dissected into odd and even days for road use, the clubs shutting early, all the authentic street food removed from the pavements, the police checks at every transport intersection - this is truly the Olympic spirit :p

Anyway, I have other plans...at the beginning of next week I plan on getting out of Beijing and heading West, for something which I will let you in on over the next few days as plans come together. Anyway, it's something that I'm very very excited about, but still has some way to go to be finalised.